TAKE OUR MAYOR, PLEASE!
Protesters jeer prez wannabe during Blaz rally at Trump Tower
Mayor de Blasio touts his Green New Deal at Trump Tower in Midtown on Monday in possible precursor of much-derided presidential run.
Mayor de Blasio insisted “no one is above the law” on Monday while dodging questions about his security detail’s coverup of a 2015 crash involving his NYPD SUV.
“Everyone has to follow the law,” the mayor told reporters at Trump Tower. “When it’s an NYPD situation, sometimes there is a specific security reality, or some other reason why they do something exceptional. But they have to come to that determination.”
The Daily News exclusively reported that de Blasio’s NYPD driver was going the wrong way on 135th St. with lights and sirens blaring when his SUV collided with a boiler truck turning left on Aug. 22, 2015.
The mayor was en route to an event kicking off a Harlem Run/Walk event. City Hall and the NYPD would not say whether de Blasio was running late at the time of the crash. Text messages sent by members of de Blasio’s security detail obtained by The News show that, the commanding officer of the unit, Inspector Howard Redmond, ordered detectives to cover it up.
The mayor’s driver was later given a verbal instruction on safe driving. But no report on the crash was filed with the state Department of Motor Vehicles, as required by law when vehicle damage exceeds $1,000.
The News revealed the crash occurred last month. It remains unclear why de Blasio’s SUV was driving the wrong way, with lights and sirens, in a nonemergency situation.
De Blasio claimed Monday he did not remember much about the crash.
“I don’t have memory of the details of that incident but I can say that no one’s above the law. But the NYPD has to determine what happened in that case,” he said. “I don’t remember that at all. When I’m in the car I’m usually on the phone, reading emails, reading papers, I don’t remember specifics. I remember a very minor incident.”
No one was injured in the crash. Sources close to the mayor’s executive protection unit have told The News the accident was swept under the rug to protect de Blasio from embarrassing headlines.
Under state law, lights and sirens can only be used in emergency situations. But an NYPD spokesman insisted that using lights and sirens in the police SUV transporting the mayor is up to the “judgment and discretion” of detectives and bosses on the detail.